Fantasy Football Gold in Week 4: Time To Jump on The Ryan Torain Train?

TheFantasyFix.comOct 5, 2010

So you were sitting at home on Sunday afternoon warding off your significant other’s pleas to take out the trash, wash the cars, and walk the dog. You cracked open a cold one – let’s be honest, it was probably a Diet Coke – and you performed the underrated superhero power of watching a football game while simultaneously adding up your player’s points as their stats trickle across the crawler at the bottom of the screen.

You see that John Kuhn isn’t making you a genius. You think to yourself that it’s high time you trade Kuhnie out for another bargain player who has yet to make it on 50 percent of fantasy football rosters. Enter Ryan Torain…

Ryan Torain: 18 carries, 70 yards, one TD vs. Philadelphia

What’s worse than being a running back with a 4.71 in the 40-yard dash at the 2008 Scouting Combine? Being a running back with a 4.71 in the 40 and tearing your ACL in your first NFL start. That, my friends, is the story of Ryan Torain.

The 6’1”, 218 lb. tailback attended Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, just a few miles outside of Kansas City. He attended Butler Community College, alma mater of bruising Bengals running back Rudi Johnson, from 2004 to 2005.

Torain posted respectable rushing numbers at Arizona State, racking up over 1,200 yards in his junior year. He garnered 2007 second team All-Pac 10 honors. Torain’s college career was marked by tough running, something Eagles’ safety Quintin Mikell found out halfway through his somersault on Sunday.

Projections:

Torain’s first start in the NFL, a 2008 game against the Browns, started well and ended terribly. Before his ACL tear in the second quarter, Torain racked up 68 yards and a touchdown.

Fast forward two years. One hobbled Clinton Portis, and 13 points later, it’s like Torain never missed time.

There’s a good chance the former Sundevil will get his first start in nearly two years next week against the Packers. Clinton Portis’ groin is on the fritz again. Both Green Bay (24th) and Indianapolis (29th), the Redskins’ next two foes, are in the bottom 10 of the league’s rushing defenses.

And don’t forget this fact: in Sunday’s game, the Redskins rushed the ball 35 times; 18 carries went to Torain, 11 went to Portis, five went to quarterback Donovan McNabb, and one went to wide receiver Santana Moss. Not a bad future for a guy owned in only 24 percent of Yahoo leagues.